


Like The Spring aka The One About Cactuses And Forget-Me-Nots

by CacophonyOfWords



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, Post ep13, fluff with a side of humor, humor with a side of fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-10
Updated: 2014-10-10
Packaged: 2018-02-20 15:17:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2433479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CacophonyOfWords/pseuds/CacophonyOfWords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Stop talking, I wanna kiss you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like The Spring aka The One About Cactuses And Forget-Me-Nots

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angelspit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelspit/gifts).



“And then you click on the small arrow on the green button, and click ‘video call’,” Rin said into his phone, as he stared at the Skype window pulled up on his laptop.

He heard only breathing before a video call invite came through and he quickly clicked on it, the window stretching out, and after another second of waiting, Haruka appeared on the screen.

“Got it,” Haru said, his voice echoing both in Rin’s phone and out of the laptop’s speakers.

“And now you just have to make sure the audio and the microphone work properly and you are set for a video call,” Rin added as he maximized the window so Haru’s face was spread over the full screen.

Haru hummed in acknowledgement as he leaned closer, his eyes getting so big on Rin’s laptop that the former Samezuka’s captain had to lean away, almost uncomfortable.

“Oi, Haru,” he said. “Lean back, I can only see your eyes,” he told his friend.

Haru’s eyebrows rose out of the screen before the boy, indeed, leaned back a bit and Rin could see him better.

“I thought you liked my eyes, clear as water,” Haru only said, and Rin wondered if the image just got grainier or if his friend really sent him a small, smug grin.

“Wha- _WHAT?”_ Rin spluttered nervously, his grip on his phone loosening and almost sending the device crashing on the floor. “What… how do you…?!” he asked dumbfounded. On the screen, he could see Haru moving his phone away from his ear, most probably to avoid eardrum damage.

“I don’t speak English fluently, but I can still understand basic sentences like ‘Just like you described him, Rin,’.”

Rin hoped the blush he felt rising on his cheeks was not so visible on Haru’s laptop.

“This is pointless,” Haru suddenly said. “Why do we have to talk via phone?” he added before putting down his phone, and Rin looked back to his laptop just in time to see Haru on screen raising his arm above the laptop before the video call was ended abruptly.

Rin sighed as he logged off Skype and shut down his laptop. He was just about to put it in his bag, when he heard steps approaching him.

“I hope you will say bye more properly when we actually video chat, Haru,” he said as his friend sat down at the table.

“I’ll try,” replied Haru.

“Tsk,” Rin snorted and let himself fell back on the tatami. “And here I was so kind to come all the way from home to show you how to use your new laptop.”  
  
“It was you and Nagisa who insisted.”

“Exactly,” Rin nodded. “Would you have preferred Rei making you a video tutorial starring Nagisa?” he asked, amused, and Haru’s sudden reaction was enough of a giveaway to know the answer.

“Say, Haru,” Rin said after a while, his gaze now set on the familiar old trophy standing on one of the shelves. “What should we do with that?”

“Huh?” Haru asked and his eyes followed Rin’s. “Oh… you want to bury it again?”

“Nah,” Rin said. “Makoto already left for Tokyo and it is too late for Nagisa to come to the swim club,” he explained, looking out to see the dark sky that had already fallen.

“We can bury it here,” Haru suggested and Rin had to look at his friend in surprise. “Under the tree in the backyard.” Haru shrugged.

 

* * *

  


“Don’t you have a smaller tin box?” Rin asked as he observed the trophy positioned in the middle of a four feet square and one foot deep box. They were standing outside in the garden behind the house and had just spent the better part of an hour digging a hole big enough for the only box Haru had managed to find.

“It is big enough,” Haru replied.

“It is _too_ big,” Rin protested. “Look at how empty it looks with just the trophy, we should add something.”

“Like what?”

“Wait here, I have an idea,” Rin said as he ran back inside the house, remerging a few minutes later with a bundle in his arms.

“Oi, what are you…,” Haru started protesting when he recognized the two jackets that Rin was now arranging in the tin box.

“We are teammates despite being on different teams, right?” Rin asked.

“Yeah, but…” Haru started to talk but then he just shook his head and instead helped Rin close the lid and put the box into the hole in the ground. They worked in silence as they tried to cover up as much as they could in the dark of the night, the only sources of light being the moon and the light reflecting through the window of the Nanase household.

“I think it’s okay,” Rin said and pulled out his phone, using its light to check if they had everything covered. It was obvious that something had been just buried under the patch of dirt but they left no obvious hole.

“Maybe we should have some kind of flowers planted above…” Rin suggested.

“What?” Haru asked, surprised.

Rin turned to him and smiled. “Something like forget-me-nots? Wouldn’t that be romantic?” He grinned; the same grin he had flashed all those years before.

“I don’t think there’s enough dirt left on top for something to grow properly,” Haru replied. “Maybe a cactus?”

Rin started coughing nervously. “A cactus? Haru… do you know anything about the language of flowers?”

“No.”

Rin sighed and scratched his forehead, remembering too late that he had residuals of dirt on his hand that were now splattered all over his face.

“Ugh,” he groaned, trying to brush it off with the long sleeve of his shirt.

“What’s the meaning of forget-me-nots?” Haru asked.

“Huh,” Rin looked at him with a sudden feeling of nervousness rising inside him. “Well, as the name says, it is about not forgetting someone.”

“And what is the meaning of the cactus?”

Rin felt his cheeks heat up as he struggled to answer. “I don’t know the meaning of every plant, damn it, Haru,” he said just as the wind suddenly picked up and he felt something fall from above, straight on his head. He quickly raised his hand to his hair, hoping that a bug or something didn’t get tangled in it, but instead his fingers touched something soft. He carefully closed his fingertips around it and pulled it out of his hair, bringing it close to his eyes.

“This is…” He gasped before turning his phone to the tree they had buried the tinbox under. The light illuminated the trunk as Rin moved his hand until he could see the branches extending above them.

“…a sakura tree,” he breathed out. “You have a sakura tree?” he asked incredulously.

“Yeah,” Haru said in his usual low voice. “It’s been here since before I was born,” he explained as he also looked up to the tree. Another gush of wind and more sakura petals flew around them, making both of them shiver at the sudden cold air.

“Let’s go inside, it’s cold,” Haru said then. “I’ll make some tea.”

 

* * *

 

“Thank you.” Rin gladly accepted the warm cup of tea, fingers around it warming immediately. Burying a big tinbox after sunset suddenly seemed like a very silly idea, especially considering he'd buried his own jacket as well.

Haru was rummaging through one of the closets in the living room, pulling out a blanket and sniffing it carefully before offering it to Rin.

“Here,” he said. “It doesn’t smell stale.”

“Oh.” Rin looked surprised but then smiled. “Thanks,” he said, accepting the blanket and wrapping it around his shoulders, feeling the warmth soaking through the thin layer of his shirt.

“I will give you a hoodie when you leave,” Haru added.

“Or you could just give me back my black one,” Rin suggested. “Or do you want to keep it as a memory of me?” He smirked. He took a sip of his tea and looked at his friend, almost choking when he noticed the faint blush on Haru’s cheeks. Did he not make the joke obvious?

They sipped their tea in silence and Rin didn’t know what exactly had shifted between them, but the air suddenly felt tense and uncomfortable yet there was still something pleasant about it.

“We buried a time capsule,” Haru suddenly said.

“Huh?” Rin looked up surprised. “Who?”

“Makoto, Nagisa, Rei and I,” Haru explained. “Before we went to Samezuka the other day. We wrote a letter about the sight we saw during our last relay.”

“Oh.” Rin nodded, understanding. “That’s nice,” he said with a smile.

Haru returned the small smile before looking back down at his cup. “Umm, I also wrote a second letter. For you.”

Rin’s eyebrows arched up in a surprise. Sure, a part of him felt a pang of jealousy at not being included in the time capsule burial – but he understood that the Iwatobi team was their own team, and he had his own at Samezuka. But every sad feeling disappeared immediately at the news that _Haru_ had written another letter, _for Rin._

“Can I read it?” he asked with a big grin, leaning over the table in such a rush that he almost tipped over the cup with his tea.

Haru nodded and walked out of the room, returning a minute later with a white envelope in his hand.

He sat down at the table, not across from Rin but on his other side. The letter was on the table, Haru’s hand firmly pressing it in place.

Rin felt his fingers itch.

“I’m not that good with words,” Haru started explaining as he slid the envelope towards Rin a bit.

Rin moved his hand, his fingers now brushing the folded paper but Haru’s grip was still strong.

“ _Haruuu_ ,” Rin almost whined, the curiosity slowly taking him over.

“But I was talking about the sight I saw,” Haru continued as he ignored Rin’s complaining. “And then I started thinking about the sight I saw thanks to you…”

Rin’s expression changed at that admission and he looked back at his friend, who still had his eyes locked on the envelope.

“And this is the sight I want to see in the future… with you,” Haru eventually admitted with a low voice, pushing the envelope towards Rin.

Rin suddenly felt nervous and his fingers were shaking as he took the envelope and opened it slowly, taking out the folded paper. He slowly unfolded the letter, feeling like something had fallen out but his eyes were too focused on what he saw on the paper.

“It’s a drawing…” he breathed out.

“I told you I was not good with words,” Haru muttered in his defence.

Rin remained speechless as he observed the sketch spread out in front of his eyes.

“Rei was talking about the Japanese national swimming team,” Haru continued talking and Rin couldn’t believe that he was witnessing a scene like this; him being left without words, as Haruka Nanase continued talking without any prompt. “He mentioned the relay team and how that in the past years it reached good results but they…”

Rin looked up at that point.

“But they never won gold at the Olympics?” he finished the phrase for Haru and finally looked up from the drawing of the two gold medals Haru had made.

“Yet,” was Haru only reply.

“Yet,” Rin repeated with a smile. He looked back at the drawing when he remembered about noticing something falling on the table.

“Are these sakura petals…?” he asked incredulously as he looked back at Haru.

“Umm,” Haru muttered as he looked from the petals to Rin and then back at his cup. “I had some of them in my bag from the day at Samezuka so I just put them inside,” he admitted with a shrug.

A sly smile spread on Rin’s lips. “Haru, if I didn’t know you any better, I’d almost call you a _romantic._ ”

“I…,” Haru blurted, and either Rin was imagining things or there indeed was a blush creeping into his friend’s cheeks.

Haru eventually sighed deeply and twined his fingers around his cup, the tea gone cold by now.

“The sakura tree outside…,” he started explaining. “It’s across from the bathroom and last year, one morning, a sakura petal flew into the bathtub.”

He looked at Rin and exhaled deeply at Rin’s confused expression.

“It was the day we met again at the old swim club,” he continued. “It was like the sakura petal announced the arrival of the spring, but also your return.”

Rin’s eyes widened in shock. If this was a romantic movie he’d have an idea of something that was bound to happen next, but this was Haruka Nanase and there was no way that he would…

“Ha-,” Rin whispered but Haru apparently didn’t hear him, as he continued talking.

“And I was thinking that day… that like spring brings the arrival of new things and new sights, you also bring new things and new… _sights_ ,” he whispered the last word, making it barely audible as he continued staring at the cup on the table.

Rin gulped, feeling a sense of heat spread through his face as his facial muscles threatened to split in a big grin. He silently leaned over the table, his head now close to Haru who was apparently so focused on the tight grip of his hands that he didn’t even notice Rin’s movements.

“It’s odd hearing you tell someone they are like spring, _Haru,_ ” Rin whispered close to Haru’s ear.

Haru’s back immediately tensed as the boy looked up with his eyes wide open in surprise, indeed not expecting Rin to be so close to him.

“Ri-” Haru went to say but Rin was faster than him as he lifted his hand to Haru's cheek and turned his face closer to him.

“Stop talking, I wanna kiss you,” he whispered before pressing their lips together.

In the first few moments when their lips touched, a variety of thoughts crossed Rin’s mind. What had actually happened? Because either Rin was having the best and most random dream ever, or Haru had actually just confessed to him, in his own way. Unless a confession was not what Haru had had in mind and Rin had blatantly just assaulted one of his closest friends. _Shit._

But Haru was not pushing him away and Rin slowly cracked an eye open, just to make sure that everything was okay. He didn’t really see that much, just Haru’s right eye being closed and the bit of eyebrow he could see made him think that Haru looked quite relaxed but maybe Rin really had jumped the gun, so he slowly pulled his lips away, keeping his forehead close to Haru’s.

“I…,” Rin whispered as he finally looked into Haru’s eyes. “Maybe I should… go?” he asked.

Haru pulled away and looked at the clock on the wall. It was _late._

“There’s one more train leaving in an hour and half,” was the only thing Haru said and it was enough for Rin. He grasped the forgotten blanket that he had dropped on his side and pulled it up around his shoulders before engulfing Haru with it and pulling him closer, enclosing them in a cocoon of blanket and kisses.

 

* * *

  
  
One hour later, they were still wrapped in a blanket and sharing kisses, only that this time Haru was the one keeping a hold on the cocoon and they were in the genkan, Rin ready with his shoes on.

“I have to go,” he eventually said and took a step back, putting some proper distance between them.

“You can stay the night,” Haru suggested with a shrug.

“No, I really can’t,” Rin said with a faint blush. “It is getting laid… I mean _late._ ” His blush intensified at the slip. “Also, I promised Gou I’d be home for breakfast.”

Haru nodded when he suddenly seemed to remember something.

“Wait, I have to give you a hoodie…,” he said and without waiting for a reply, turned around to climb up the stairs.

Rin suddenly noticed the chilled air surrounding him, he had forgotten about the late hour and not having his Samezuka jacket anymore.

“Hey, Haru?” he called out just as the other boy had reached the top stair.

“What?”

“Keep mine and bring me one of yours?”

**Author's Note:**

> OMAKE: Haru left for Tokyo a few days later, Rin would leave for Australia next week. Rin left home one day earlier so he could spend the last day in Japan with Haru (and Makoto). He brought Haru a housewarming gift – a vase with a cactus, surrounded by forget-me-nots.
> 
> A/N: okay, this is a birthday fic for flossa who absolutely deserves it (especially because I was dragged in this fandom because of her <3).  
> A very important thing I just want to point out is that while I was writing it, I came up with the joke about cactuses and forget-me-nots but I didn't know whether the japanese name for the latter had a similar meaning as in English. So I googled up a bit and stumbled upon this wikipedia page for [Hanakotoba](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanakotoba) which is the Japanese form for the language of flowers, if you're too lazy to click on it, the meaning of forget-me-nots are deep love while according to the page, the cactus is a symbol for lust. The joke wrote itself at that point.  
> PS: I know the laid/late joke wouldn't really work in japanese but it is a shout out at my own idiocy, because I made that typo at first and then just decided to keep it because it was too funny.


End file.
